


Jamie's Angels in: Things That Happened On Midsummer Night

by JohnAmendAll



Series: Jamie's Angels [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, This Time Round
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie's Angels stumble across a mystery when their car breaks down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: A Midsummer Night's Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prologue (and epilogue) are drabbles, set in the Whoniverse at some point after Fear of the Daleks. The rest of the chapters take place Outside Continuity, in the world of the Round.

"Dream diary, Zoë Heriot. Entry 343, for the night of the 21st to 22nd of June."

Zoë briefly collected her thoughts, then resumed.

"It's been a while since I had any dreams of note. I was beginning to think they'd stopped altogether. I wonder whether they've still been going on all this time and I just haven't remembered them.

"I also wonder how on earth I'm going to explain this one to my analyst."

She sipped at her coffee, and took the plunge.

"I was in a vehicle, with Jamie and a lot of people I'm sure I've never met..."


	2. The Night We Went To Glastonbury By Way Of Goodwin Sands

It had all seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Left to their own devices, Jamie and Zoë tended not to handle Midsummer's Day terribly well. Jamie would almost certainly mope and tell anyone who asked that he was wounded and would never really heal, while Zoë had developed an annoying tendency to overcompensate, dress up as a jester, and hit people with a bladder on a stick.

So when Isobel had suggested that they all spend the day at a music festival, to "take people's minds off things" as she'd rather tactlessly put it, everyone had jumped at the idea. Setting aside any differences in musical taste, they'd all managed to enjoy themselves, the rain had mostly held off, and there had been a complete lack of alien invasions. As Gia was obviously the most sensible person among them (not to mention the only one who could canonically drive a car) it was completely logical that she be the designated driver for the journey there and the journey back...

... which was why she was now driving a hired people-carrier along a single-track road in the pitch darkness, with four young women in the back who'd spent the entire journey either talking utter nonsense or inventing a game called 'Four songs to the tunes of four other songs' and then playing it at the tops of their voices. That would have been quite enough to wear Gia's patience down, but then there'd also been Jamie and his struggles with the unfamiliar world of cartography.

"We should be coming onto the Barchester bypass about now," he said, peering at the map.

Gia looked out into unrelieved blackness.

"That would be a big dual carriageway, I take it?" she said. "Because I don't see anything like that here."

"Aye, well, maybe it'll be the next turning."

"Or maybe not." She glared at the dashboard. "Why didn't I insist on a car with Satnav?"

"Sat-what?" Jamie asked, struggling to hear over the raucous sounds from the back seats.

"Satellite nav— Oh, forget it." Out of the tail of her eye, she saw something white drift past. "Was that a signpost?"

"Aye, but I couldna' make it out," Jamie admitted.

Victoria broke off halfway through her spirited mangling of "Baby One More Time."

"It said 'No Through Road'," she said.

"Rubbish," Samantha countered. "It was 'Unbridged Ford'."

The vehicle shuddered over a cattle grid, giving rise to delighted screams and shouts of "Whoa there."

"Oh, great," Gia muttered. "It just gets better and better."

"Is that why that light on yon dashboard thing just lit up?" Jamie asked, pointing innocently.

Gia looked. The indicator Jamie was referring to did not seem to have been designed to reassure; rather than being a stylised image of a vehicle component, such as a battery, oil can or fuel pump, it was merely an enigmatic question mark, now glowing with amber light.

"Look it up in the manual," she commanded him. "I'll pull over and—"

"There you are," Samantha interrupted. "Told you so. Unbridged ford."

Sure enough, the road ahead was crossed by a watercourse, which in the light of the headlamps looked dangerously deep and wide. Gia slammed on the brakes, causing the vehicle to shudder to a halt. The engine spluttered and cut out.

"Dratted museum piece," Gia grumbled, and turned the ignition key. The engine started and ran for a few seconds; then once more the question mark light glowed triumphantly and the engine stalled.

"What's going on?" Jamie asked.

"I rather think we've broken down. Give me that manual." Gia flipped through the pages until she reached the 'Troubleshooting' section. "Look at this. 'Consult a dealer'. Hopeless. How are we supposed to find a dealer out here?"

The extraneous noise was beginning to die down, now, as even the most cheerful members of the party began to realise that something was amiss.

"What's up?" Isobel asked.

"We've broken down," Gia announced. "Have you all got that? You don't want it repeated? The car's broken down and we don't know where we are either."

She turned the interior light on and looked over her shoulder. Behind her, in two rows of two, her passengers gazed back. They were just starting to look concerned.

"So if you've got any ideas, now would be a good time," she concluded.

"Call a breakdown service," Isobel said. "Or a garage."

"Fine. Has anyone got a mobile phone?"

Zoë began to delve in her trouser pocket.

"Preferably one which doesn't rely on satellites that won't be launched for another few decades?"

Zoë stopped delving.

"What about that T-Mat thing you're always playing with?" Jamie asked. "Couldn't you just, well, beam us all out of here?"

"Funny you should say that," said Gia. "I have been experimenting with a portable base station."

"And?"

"And at the moment it weighs seven tonnes."

"Not something you could carry in your handbag, then." Isobel shrugged elegantly. "We'll have to wait for someone to pass and then act like damsels in distress. That's really going to do wonders for the cause of female equality."

"Actually, it will," Zoë said. "Because Jamie's in just as much distress as we are."

"If anyone comes they'll have to stop anyway," Samantha pointed out. "We're blocking the road."

"We might wait an awfully long time for anyone to come, though."

"We could just stay in the car until morning and try to get some sleep," Victoria suggested.

"No way," Samantha retorted. "I'm much too wakeful to get any sleep now. And even if I could, you snore."

"I do not snore." Victoria narrowed her eyes. "How would you know, anyway?"

"Never you mind." Samantha opened her door, letting in a gust of cool night air. "Look, there's a light over there."

"Is that the sea?" Victoria asked. "I'm sure I can hear it."

"Yeah. Perhaps that light's a lighthouse or a coastguard station. Let's go and find out. It doesn't look too far."

"Stumbling around uncharted waste at the dead of night doesn't sound like my idea of fun," Isobel complained. "This is all your fault, Jamie."

"My fault? What did I do?"

"I don't know if you noticed, Jamie, but you were supposed to be reading the map. In fact you insisted on it, on the grounds that, I quote, 'It's well known that lassies are no good at the mapreading.'"

"Actually, he said we were 'hopeless' at mapreading," Zoë pedantically corrected her.

"Same difference. But my point was that when it comes down to it, it looks like Jamies are hopeless at the mapreading as well."

"Look, if I get any more lip from you—" Jamie began.

"Couldn't we try to repair the car?" Victoria asked, trying to defuse the incipient argument.

"That depends what's wrong," Gia said. "But I think the short answer is: Very unlikely. This thing doesn't come with the spares for anything more complicated than a puncture. Not to mention that even if we could take the engine to bits and manage to bypass whatever's failed, the car doesn't belong to us and the hiring company would have something to say about it."

"So, are we going to check this light out?" Samantha repeated. "Or are we just going to spend the night cooped up in here?"

"One of us has to stay with the car, in case someone does show up," Victoria said.

"Then I'll stay here too, and make sure you're all right," Jamie said.

"That's very kind of you, Jamie. This whole thing makes me nervous. It reminds me of a story, and not a nice one."

There was a general chorus of agreement.

"It starts with a group of people," Victoria continued. "And their carriage—"

"Spaceship."

"Car."

"Horse."

"Van."

"Skimmer."

"Well, whatever their transport is, it comes to grief somehow. They're out in the middle of nowhere, and they go to the nearest house—"

"Asteroid."

"For help. And then, the inhabitants all turn out to be—"

"Space pirates."

"Vampires."

"Cannibals."

"Werewolves."

"Leftpathers."

"And the people whose car broke down are never seen again." Isobel shivered. "Are you sure going out there's a good idea?"

"Look, it's just a story," Samantha reminded them. "It doesn't really happen like that. What are Leftpathers anyway?"

"The Little Flowers of the Left Hand Path," Gia said. "They believe in the sanctity of the Earth and the inherent sinfulness of waste. So they purify the motorists with knives. Lots of knives."

"You really ken how tae cheer us all up," Jamie said.

"Sorry. She did ask."

"I'm staying in the car with Jamie and Victoria," Isobel said firmly.

"Really?" Victoria raised her eyebrows. "I wouldn't have expected someone from your time to insist that I need a chaperone."

"That's nothing to do with it. For all I care you two can spend the whole night smooching. But you need someone here who knows what they're doing."

"Aye," Jamie said automatically, and then realised what he'd just agreed with. "Now hang on a minute. You say one more thing like that and I'll—"

Isobel managed a faint echo of her usual superior smile. "Oh, promises, promises."

\- * -

Soon afterwards, Gia, Samantha and Zoë were making their way along the road, heading roughly in the direction of the light ahead of them. Perhaps because of their past experiences with the Doctor, each of the Angels routinely carried a number of items that 'might come in handy'; Samantha had quickly produced a torch to light their way. When they'd actually come to cross it, the ford had proved to be wide but shallow, hardly enough to wet their boots. On the far side, though, the road quickly dwindled to a rutted track.

"I wonder where we are," Samantha said, picking her way between the puddles.

"At least a hundred miles off course," Gia said. "I'm never using Jamie as a navigator again."

"And we're nowhere near civilisation," Zoë added. As usual when delivering bad news she was certain of, she sounded infuriatingly cheerful.

"How d'you work that out?" Samantha asked.

"Street lights," Gia said, before Zoë could embark on a long lecture designed to showcase her deductive skills. "You'd expect some sort of glow on the horizon. There isn't."

"Particularly with this cloud cover," Zoë added. She looked up. "It looks like rain. I hope we can find shelter."

"I daresay we'll end up sleeping under a hedge," Gia said gloomily. "Or in a ditch."

"I've never slept in a ditch. It might be an educational experience."

Samantha shone her torch into the ditch beside which they were currently walking. "Yeah, I bet," she said. "I'm sure all those frogs will move over if you ask them nicely."

"Well, maybe not that particular ditch. And it could be worse. At least it's summer."

"Midsummer night." Samantha looked around. "The last thing we need right now is any Shakespeare. So I'd prefer it if no-one turned into a donkey or fell in love with someone they're not supposed to. All right?"

The other two nodded.

  


In a few more minutes the land on either side of the track dropped away, leaving the three walking along a low embankment. A little further, and the embankment was replaced by a wooden bridge, its timbers ancient and slippery, which creaked with protest as they crossed. Now and again Samantha shone her torch to either side, illuminating an expanse of glistening mud and pools of water, varied now and again by clumps of reeds. Ahead of them, the silhouette of some kind of building could be made out against the near-darkness of the sky and the sea. It obviously wasn't a lighthouse; its complicated outline gave a vague impression of chimneys and gables. The light they'd seen appeared to be shining from a glass structure at the top of the building, and as they came closer they could see occasional chinks of light from shuttered windows lower down.

The bridge seemed to last forever, but eventually the marsh it crossed gave way to shingle and rose up to rejoin them. At the end of the bridge, a paved path led onward. It swung to the left to avoid the large building, running past a cluster of smaller, darkened structures. In the light of Samantha's faithful torch these proved to be single-storey buildings, pebbledashed, flat-roofed and mostly windowless. The large building, now on their right, could be nothing other than Victorian, with its patterns of multicoloured brick, its elaborate though eroded ornamented stonework, its pointed arches and its leaded windows.

The path ran round two sides of the building and then came to a halt. A flight of steps led up to what was presumably the front door, solid, studded with iron bolts, and freshly painted. A tarnished brass plate beside the door announced that this was the Daneswarren Hotel, while more recent notices added the promising "full en suite accommodation" and the less cheering "closed for refurbishment." Looking back from the top of the steps, all they could see was an expanse of shingle, and beyond that the sea.

"It doesn't look hopeful," said Gia.

"Rubbish," Samantha said. "There's a light on, so there's someone there. We'd be stupid not to knock and see if they've got any rooms."

"Go on, then."

"It might sound better coming from one of you. You both sound posh — I'm as common as muck."

"We're not really dressed for it, though," Zoë said.

"Neither am I, if it comes to that."

This was true. Samantha was dressed in the exuberant style of her native 1966; Zoë was sporting a bright red T-shirt with the legend ADRENALINE JUNKIE; and Gia had not only stayed with a jumpsuit, but chosen one with an eye-hurting black and white spiral design. After their day at the festival and their nocturnal walk, all three also looked grubby, untidy, and vaguely disreputable.

Gia took a deep breath. "We'll just have to do the best we can."

She stepped forward and rang the bell.


	3. Some Fantastic, Far-Off Hotel

The woman who answered the door seemed respectable enough to calm any fears of werewolves, vampires, cannibals, or space pirates, though the look she gave them was not precisely welcoming. As far as could be seen with the light behind her, she was dark-haired, fortyish, and sturdily built.

"We're very sorry to disturb you," Gia said. "But our car has broken down, and we wondered if we could telephone for help."

"I suppose you'd better come in, then." She looked over the group. "Is it just the three of you?"

"There's three more with the car," Samantha said.

"Well, don't stand around outside. You come in and we'll see what's to be done."

Gia did as she was bidden, tried to wipe her feet, and decided that this was a lost cause.

"Boots off, everyone," she said. "Or we'll make a terrible mess."

As the trio removed their muddy footwear, they looked around the hall. When built, it had probably been a fine example of Victorian excess. Now, the carpet was threadbare, the wallpaper peeling, the brass tarnished. Here and there more recent additions, apparently made of plywood painted white, clashed badly with the original elaborate design. The windows were not only shuttered, but covered by decades-old blackout blinds. Light was provided by softly-hissing gas mantles here and there on the walls. Stacks of building materials around the foot of the main staircase added to the chaotic impression.

"The telephone's here," the woman said, leading them to what was clearly the reception desk.

It certainly was, though the fact that it had a dial, was made of black Bakelite, and looked a museum piece even to Samantha didn't exactly reassure.

"No need for the other two of you to stand around," the woman continued, as Gia picked up the telephone and began to experiment with the dial. "Plenty of seats, but it's best if you leave the dustsheets on. Those builders make such a mess."

Zoë perched herself on the edge of a settle. "Thank you, Mrs..."

"Walters. You might call me the housekeeper."

"D'you have to look after all this by yourself?" Samantha asked.

"There's help that comes in as and when. Of course, when we're open again, it'll be a different story. But these builders take forever..."

Samantha and Zoë let the housekeeper's ramblings wash over them, taking surreptitious glances at their watches from time to time.

\- * -

Isobel could have sworn she hadn't dropped off, but when the car door was flung open and Victoria bit back a scream, she jerked awake, feeling stiff and unrefreshed.

"It's all right," the shadowy figure outside said in an unmistakeable Liverpool accent. "It's only us."

"Samantha." Victoria sighed with relief. "Is there something wrong? You were gone for ever so long. I thought you were a highwayman or something."

"Yeah, we're fine. Zoë's here, too. Say hello, Zoë."

Zoë leaned into the car and waved. "Hello, everyone."

"So how d'ye get on?" Jamie asked. "And where's Gia?"

Samantha grinned. "We've hit the jackpot. There's a hotel just up the road from here. Closed, but they reckon they can put us up for the night. We might have to share rooms, but it's a lot better than sleeping in this heap of scrap iron."

"What about the car?" Isobel said. "It's still blocking the road."

"Don't worry about that. This road doesn't go anywhere. And no-one's gonna look at the car until tomorrow. We'll tell you all about it while we walk."

Isobel climbed out of the car.

"You've won me over," she said. "Come on, you two."

In moments, all five were heading for the hotel.

"What happened, then?" Victoria asked. "Presumably you were able to make your telephone call?"

"Gia rang the hire company," Zoë explained. "They weren't the least use (Be careful here, these stones are slippery). No-one's allowed to look at the car except their own people, or we lose our deposit. And that won't happen before at least 10:30 tomorrow."

"I bet Gia was in a strop after that," Isobel said.

"She doesn't do strops. But she had a lot to say about the car. She called it a decrepit antique that belonged in a scrapyard."

"It looked pretty new to me," Isobel said. "But she does seem to have an effect on cars. They _behave_ like antiques when she drives them. It must be something to do with being from the future."

"Ah, that'll be one of those timey-wimey things," Jamie said knowledgeably.

"Then she tried calling the Round," Samantha said. "In the end she got through to Luna. Apparently things there, quote, weren't good, unquote."

"Oh dear," Victoria said.

"Yeah. Sounded like Donna's flown off the handle again. She's been through a lot, you know."

"I do," Jamie said pointedly.

"Sorry, of course you do. Anyway, there's no chance of anyone sending a TARDIS out to pick us up."

"Hotel, here we come," Isobel said. "Is that light it?"

"That's it," Samantha said. "It's the dome at the top of the stairs. They've got shutters on the other windows."

Victoria shivered. "It looks spooky," she said.

"Well, I can't change how it looks," Zoë said impatiently.

Samantha brought the party to a halt.

"This is where the bridge starts," she said. "Best if we spread out a bit."

"You mean it might collapse?" Isobel asked. She took a few cautious steps onto the bridge, keeping one hand on the rail. "Good job I'm not wearing my heels, they'd go straight through."

"Is there any other way round?" Jamie asked.

"Nope," Samantha replied triumphantly. "It's an island, and this is the only bridge."

"That's useful. You could hold an army off wi' a handful of good men." Jamie cautiously followed Isobel onto the bridge, with Victoria close behind. Zoë and Samantha brought up the rear.

  


The rest of the journey to the hotel passed without incident. Mrs Walters, who was still there when they returned, had taken the arrival of two more unkempt flower children and a kilted Scotsman with reasonable equanimity. She'd been joined by a young man, who apparently rejoiced in the name of Henry.

"This is them, right?" he asked.

"This is us," Samantha said truculently. "Want to make something of it, wack?"

"Party of six." He sucked his teeth. "Could be tricky. Well, let's see. There's the Plumstead Suite— no, the roof's not what I'd call watertight. Come to think of it, that's most of the top floor out as well."

"There must be other rooms, though?" Victoria asked.

"The water's off in the central range..."

"The Harrington annexe?" Mrs Walters suggested.

"No lights."

"That just leaves the towers."

"Well, the West Tower. No floor in the East one right now."

"So it'll be all right for us to stay in the West Tower?" Isobel asked, giving him a winning smile.

Henry looked reluctant. "Yeah, probably. There's no heating, but I suppose at this time of year you can do without. And whatever you do, don't try to open the windows, 'cos I won't be responsible for the consequences if you do."

"Don't worry, we won't. We shan't be any trouble at all, will we, Sam?"

"'Course not," Samantha said, shaking her head.

"Don't know what you'll do about breakfast," Henry added gloomily. "It's not like the kitchen's in any state to use."

"Now, you're just making difficulties," Mrs Walters said. "There's the café on the seafront. We can open that up in the morning."

"It's very good of you to go to all this trouble," Victoria said.

"You're welcome," Henry muttered, looking as if he'd rather see them all at the bottom of the sea. "I'll show you to your rooms."

To add the finishing touch to the group's exhausting day, the rooms turned out to be at the top of the tower, three floors up, and reachable only by a steep and dimly-lit back staircase. Once there, they found the accommodation consisted of two large suites, on either side of a corridor. The rooms themselves were in a partially-dismantled state, but there were, at least, enough beds to go round.

After no more than token bickering, they divided into two groups of three, shared out such bedding as they could find, and settled down for the night.


	4. It'll All Come Out In The Wash

Samantha had ended up sharing with Zoë and Isobel. She'd have preferred to go in with Jamie and Victoria, but then she'd have had to retract her accusation that Victoria snored. She'd realised at the time how stupid that was, but she'd never been one to back down.

She felt even stupider now. She'd dozed for a while, woken, and despite her fatigue hadn't managed to get back to sleep. The bed was uncomfortable and the room chilly, but that wasn't the main problem. Her efforts to avoid Victoria's imaginary snoring had brought her slap up against Zoë's all too real nightmares. And just in case Samantha did manage to block out the sound of Zoë thrashing about, Isobel seemed to have started talking in her sleep.

Samantha's throat felt dry, too. 'Basic' was too generous a word to describe the amenities here, but water shouldn't be beyond them.

She slipped out of her bed, and tried to make her way to the bathroom as quietly as possible. The floor soon put paid to that idea. Every step she took gave rise to a different chorus of creaks. If Isobel and Zoë were still asleep after this, it certainly wouldn't be thanks to her.

It was only when she was on her way back after her drink that she realised she'd maligned the other two. The voices, and at least some of the other sounds she was hearing, weren't coming from their direction at all. Someone elsewhere was talking. She strained to make out the words; a few muttered phrases like "too late now" and "within the hour" caught her attention.

She was turning the words over in her head, wondering whether to wake the other two, when she solved the dilemma by blundering into someone's bed and falling headlong on top of them.

"Let me go," Zoë's sleepy voice muttered. "I'll tell you everything— Oh, it's you, Sam."

"Zoë, something's going on."

"Something's always going on. Can't someone else fix it? I'm tired."

"Listen, will you?"

They listened, but whoever had been talking wasn't doing so now.

"You're imagining things," Zoë said.

"I heard voices!" Samantha protested, her own voice rising.

There was a creak from Isobel's bed as she sat up. "Shut up, you two," she said. "Can't you have your pillow fight in the daytime?"

"This isn't a pillow fight."

"Then I don't want to know what it is." Isobel yawned ostentatiously. "Whatever you're playing at, keep the noise down. Some of us are trying to get some sleep."

"Well, you shouldn't be." Samantha climbed off Zoë's bed and put her hands on her hips. "There's things going on round here. We may be in trouble."

"Go away."

Samantha felt her way to her own bed, pulled on such clothes as she hadn't already been wearing, retrieved her torch, and took her leave. In moments, she was back again.

"Now what?" Isobel asked drowsily.

"Someone's locked us in," Samantha hissed. "I tried the door at the top of the stairs. It's bolted on the other side. Told you something was going on."

"No rest for the wicked," Zoë said. "Come on. Let's go and wake the others."

In the event, 'the others' meant Gia. Jamie had woken at once, but had refused to countenance disturbing Victoria's sleep. Neither would he hear of leaving her on her own, if there was a possibility of danger, so it had been agreed that he should stay with her.

"Where did you say the voices were coming from?" Isobel asked.

Samantha crossed to the area of the bathroom door and shone her torch about.

"Somewhere round here," she said.

"Perhaps the pipes conduct sound," Gia suggested.

"Doesn't help us," Isobel said. "We can't fit down a pipe."

"Except maybe Zoë," Samantha said. She ducked a thrown pillow. "Sorry, I couldn't resist. So the door's out and the pipes are out."

"That man Henry said we shouldn't open the windows," Zoë said. "Not that we'd fit through them, either. I suppose there ought to be a fire escape somewhere."

Isobel snapped her fingers. "The laundry chute. It's out on the landing. Come on."

She led the others out onto the landing.

"Here we are," she said, indicating a metal hatch.

"You're not seriously thinking of climbing down there?" Gia asked. "It could be a sheer drop and you'd break your neck."

"That wouldn't necessarily be a problem," Zoë said thoughtfully. "If you spreadeagled yourself against the sides of the shaft you could probably slow yourself down enough."

"I hadn't thought of that," Isobel said. "I wonder if perhaps—"

"Oh, come on." Samantha's slender reserves of patience seemed exhausted. "Let's get it over with."

Before the others could stop her, she'd lowered herself into the shaft, feet first, and disappeared from view. The other three exchanged glances, though since Samantha had taken the torch with her it was a bit difficult to pick up subtle nuances of expression.

"Now what?" Gia asked.

"Well," Zoë said. "I didn't actually hear any crashes or screams."

"Good enough for me," Isobel said, and climbed through the hatchway.

The chute, rather than the precipitous drop Gia had predicted, turned out to be at an angle and easy enough to slide down, though Isobel found herself wishing she'd been wearing trousers rather than a miniskirt. At the bottom, it opened out into a cavernous room lined with what, in the light of Samantha's torch, looked at first like rusting instruments of torture.

In hardly any time, she was joined by Zoë and Gia, the latter's jumpsuit making strange squealing noises against the metal surtace of the chute.

"Whatever's all this stuff?" Zoë asked, looking over the machinery with her usual curiosity. "Logically, the room at the bottom of a laundry chute would be the laundry, but these aren't like any washing machines I've seen before."

"I think that's what they are, though," Gia said. "Unless they're some primitive attempt at a mainframe."

"You could be right. They used paper tape in the old days, didn't they? Perhaps that's what these rollers are for."

"Don't be stupid," Samantha said. "That's a mangle."

"Mangle. A machine for rolling and pressing linen and cotton clothing after washing." Zoë shook her head. "It sounds terribly old-fashioned. But shouldn't it have a handle to turn?"

Gia bent over the mangle. "No. Look, there's a pulley here for a belt drive. The other end of which would have to be somewhere over here. Can we have the torch over this way a bit, please, Samantha?"

"Excuse me," Isobel said. "But before you two start taking all these machines to bits, didn't we come down here to investigate those voices Sam was hearing?"

"You make it sound like I'm some sort of maniac," Samantha retorted, her temper rising. "When I'm stuck in a deserted laundry with a couple of mad scientists—"

"Don't shout," Gia said. "When you shout, you make the torch wobble. Oh, and I'm an engineer, not a scientist."

"While we're on the topic of shouting," Zoë said. By now, only her legs were visible; the rest of her was lost to view behind the rusting hulk of another gigantic laundry engine. "If sound carries well enough in this building that Sam could hear a normal conversation all the way up in the tower, then we ought to try and make as little noise as possible. But that's by the by. More importantly, is this an inspection hatch and how does it open?"

Samantha pointedly aimed the torch in the opposite direction.

"I don't know," she said. "And I don't care. Now stop mucking about and follow me."

"We don't have to do anything just because you tell us to," Gia said.

"Fine, then. Stay down there in the dark, see if I care. Coming, Isobel?"

"Like a shot," Isobel said.

They headed for the door, Zoë and Gia reluctantly following.

  


Despite Henry's prophecies of doom and missing floors, the area surrounding the laundry room didn't seem to have been affected too badly by the building works. The corridors might have been run-down and unlit, with paint peeling away from the walls, but they were all structurally sound.

No sooner had the group emerged from the laundry than they heard the distant murmur of voices again. With every sound echoing off the bare walls, it was difficult to tell which direction to go, leading to lengthy pauses at each turning, and whispered arguments.

At the fourth or fifth junction, they listened as usual.

"I can't hear anything," Isobel whispered, after a while.

"Whoever it was must have finished whatever they were doing," Gia suggested.

"And returned to wherever they came from." Zoë paused in thought. "Or should that be 'whenceever'? I'll have to ask Victoria, she knows about these things."

"I don't care." Isobel shivered. "It's chilly down here. Let's get back to bed."

Zoë yawned. "I can get behind that plan."

Samantha turned to face them.

"What a load of wimps you are," she said. "What d'you wear that T-shirt for if you don't mean— eep!"

Her torch fell to the ground and went out. In the darkness, there was a muffled shriek and the sound of a scuffle.

"None of you move," a menacing voice said. "Or sweetie-pie here gets it."

Another torch snapped on. Slowly, it swept across Isobel, Zoë and Gia.

"What d'you know?" the voice continued. "A load of girls."

The torch beam swung round, to show Samantha, struggling in the grip of two black-clad and apparently faceless figures, with one arm twisted behind her back.

"'Girls'?" Isobel scowled. "Of all the sexist attitudes..."

"Shut it. Or your friend gets her arm broken."

Samantha's captor must have taken that as a hint to twist her arm a little further, because she gasped in pain.

"Same goes for if you try to run away. Hands on heads, and walk forward slowly. Turn left at the end."

"Don't do it—" Samantha began, before her captor clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Do it," the man repeated coldly.

  


In the dark, with only brief flashes of torchlight, it was impossible to see how many of the men there were, but the number certainly wasn't less than four. Stiffly and unwillingly, they found themselves marching through chilly passages and deserted rooms.

"In here," said the only man who'd spoken, pushing open a door.

The group stumbled through the door. On the other side, a staircase led down into what, in the torchlight, seemed to be an abandoned and empty cellar.

"Down the stairs and against the wall."

Step by step, feeling their way in the uncertain light, Zoë, Isobel and Gia descended the stairs and were pushed against the far wall of the cellar. A moment later, Samantha was with them.

"I'll get you for this," she muttered, massaging her arm.

"Keep quiet and stay put," the man said.

"Shan't." Samantha took a step forward.

"You're not doing yourself any favours, girl."

"Yeah? So what are you gonna do about it?"

"We'll make quite sure you don't squeal on us. That's what."

"You're gonna kill us? Go on, then. Kill me. See if I care." She folded her arms defiantly.

It was impossible to see the figure's expression, but there was a thoughtful pause.

"If you want," it said. There was a nasty metallic click as some kind of weapon was cocked.

"No!" Zoë shouted, throwing herself in the direction of the sound. The torch spun round and went out; there were a few nasty thumps and groans; and then the torch lit again, to reveal Zoë, on her knees, with an unmistakeable pistol pressed to her head.

"I think we'll have to kill 'em," one of the other figures said.

"You can't!" a third, more familiar, voice protested.

"Can't we?"

"Look, just tie them up. We'll be gone before first light, and if they tell anyone there won't be any proof. If you kill them, what's going to happen when the police find the bodies?"

"Yeah, maybe. If you can get us some rope."

The formalities of tying four young women to the water pipes were quickly completed. Their captors departed at once, leaving them in a cold, dark and damp cellar with no light whatsoever. To begin with, they tried calling for help, with no apparent result. Having grown tired of that, they continued to talk, mostly to keep awake.

"Who were they?" Isobel wondered out loud.

"I think one of them was that man Henry," Gia said. "The one who persuaded them not to kill us."

"Makes sense," Samantha said. "He probably just didn't want to clean up the blood."

"As for the rest of them, I didn't get a good look at them. Did you?"

"No. I think they were wearing balaclava helmets. Or they weren't human."

"Oh, they definitely weren't," Zoë said. "Not completely, anyway. The one who knocked me down was much stronger than a human. Cyborgs, perhaps, like the guards at International Electromatics."

"Did he hurt you?" Isobel asked. "How do you feel?"

"Just bruises, where he grabbed me. And I feel groggy, sleepy and forgetful."

"No change there, then," Samantha said. "Any luck with those ropes, Gia?"

"None." Gia wriggled again, to no avail. "We need an escapologist."

"Then next time I'll make sure to invite Jo," Zoë said. "But that isn't going to help us now."

"We could try shouting for help again," Samantha suggested.

"We've tried till we're hoarse," Isobel complained. "And it's demeaning."

Gia kicked the pipe she was tied to. Three quick beats; three slow; three quick.

"SOS," Samantha said. "Nice try, but no-one's gonna hear that, either."

In frustration, she kicked at the pipes behind her, hard. There was a horrible cracking noise, and her feet suddenly felt very wet.

"Did you just..." Isobel looked down. "Oh no. Tell me you haven't just broken the water main."

"I didn't mean to!" Samantha protested.

"So now, instead of being tied up until someone comes to rescue us, we're tied up until we drown," Gia said, looking at the water rising around her feet. "Nice work."

"Well, at least Sam'll drown before we do," Isobel said. "Sorry, Zoë. I think you're at a disadvantage here."

"We might not drown," Zoë said thoughtfully. "Hypothermia may get us first. It all depends on the rate of flow."


	5. I Don't Care Where The Water Goes

Victoria backed against the wall, trapped and helpless. The seaweed surrounded her, wrapping itself around her body. She could hear nothing but its thumping pulse and the distant roar of the sea. Somewhere, she knew, Jamie and the Doctor were looking for her; but when they found her, it would be too late. She couldn't move, couldn't resist, couldn't even breathe...

With a gasp, she woke. Her heart was still racing, and it took a little while for her to remember where she was, and to separate what she'd dreamed from what was real.

She felt a comfortingly warm hand on her shoulder.

"Are you all right?" Jamie's voice asked.

"Just a bad dream," Victoria said, trying to sound unconcerned. The images and sounds of her nightmare still felt terrifyingly close.

"Aye, it was the same with me. This isn't a good night for dreams."

"Or it's something in this place." Victoria pulled herself clear of her tangled bedding, and sat up. "I dreamed I was back on that gas platform. You know, when I was kidnapped. Except you didn't come and save me, and there was seaweed all around me..."

Jamie sat on the bed beside her, and put his arm round her shoulders.

"It must be the sound of the sea," he said. "Getting into your dreams."

"Maybe. But... Jamie, can you be quiet for a little, please?"

They sat in silence for a few moments.

"There," Victoria said suddenly. "That sound. In the pipes. It sounded just like that noise the seaweed made."

"Och, it's nothing. Probably just the cistern filling up."

"I suppose it could be. Perhaps Gia—" Victoria broke off, as a thought struck her. "Jamie, where _is_ Gia? If she's here she isn't making any noise at all."

"Well, it's like this. Samantha woke us up and said she could hear someone talking downstairs. And she said we'd been locked in. So Gia went off with her and the other lassies tae see what was afoot."

"What? Jamie! Why didn't you wake me up and tell me all this?"

"Sam wanted to. But I said ye needed your sleep."

"No more and no less than the others, surely?"

"Well, that's what I thought, anyway."

"And when was this?"

"I canna really say. I've been asleep in between."

"Oh, Jamie!"

"Ye've been spending too much time with Zoë," Jamie said. "Ye sounded jist like her then." He affected a falsetto voice. "'Oh, Jamie!'"

Victoria couldn't help laughing.

"You'd better not let her hear you do that," she said. "Anyway, you know she'd be furious if she was the one you'd left asleep."

"Ah, well, she can look after herself."

"And I can't? Jamie, I think you'd better stop talking before you say something _really_ silly."

"All right. Next time I'll wake you up every time Sam—"

He broke off. Somewhere below, a two-stroke engine roared into life. Jamie and Victoria both hurried to the window, in time to see the receding tail-light of a motorbike, seemingly on the far side of the bridge to the mainland.

"I'm going down there," Victoria said firmly. "Perhaps you would like to accompany me, Jamie?"

"Now, hang on. We're locked in..."

"Then we shall have to resort to the fire escape."

"What's got into you all of a sudden?"

"Really, Jamie. The others could be in all sorts of trouble. We need to find out what's going on."

The fire escape was nothing more elaborate than a rusty iron ladder, bolted to the exterior of the hotel. The climb down had not been an easy one, but once Victoria had started, she couldn't face turning back. Before long, she was standing with Jamie at the base of the wall. The darkness was lifting slightly; Victoria couldn't see her watch, but the night must be giving way to early morning.

Almost before they'd reached the ground, they'd heard the sound of feet on shingle. Jamie, his instincts seemingly taking over, pulled Victoria into the lee of a decorative column. Vague figures were heading from the hotel down to the seashore — five men, perhaps, all roughly the same height and build.

"I'll see if I can get closer," Jamie whispered.

"All right," Victoria whispered back. "I'll look in the hotel."

"Be careful then."

Jamie dropped to all fours and began creeping in the direction the men had walked. Victoria stood for a few moments, and then made her way to the main door, moving silently on stockinged feet.

The front door was not locked, nor even on the latch; it swung open at Victoria's touch. On the far side, the hall was just as she had seen it before, its gaslamps still lit. Having a tidy mind, Victoria closed the door behind her.

While she looked around, wondering whether there was anything to investigate, the distant sound of running water came to her ears. Given their surroundings, she nearly wrote it off as something outside, but as she listened more closely, it became clear that it wasn't. It was somewhere in the hotel.

Still moving slowly and cautiously, she headed in the direction of the sound.

  


Crouching on the shoreline, masked from view by one of the sheds, Jamie watched as the men he'd been trailing carried some kind of black lightweight boat into the sea and climbed aboard. As soon as the last man had boarded, the boat began to glide slowly out to sea, with no more than a quiet hum of electric motors.

  


Victoria paused at the corridor junction, waiting for her eyes and courage to adapt to the darkness. Even to get this far, she'd had to feel her way along the wall. The sound of flowing water still seemed as far away as ever. Now and again there was an occasional clang from the plumbing, and that, too, sounded as if it came from the same direction.

She took a deep breath and a step forward. It was nearly her last; her foot came down on something that rolled away, throwing her off-balance, and she ended up in a heap on the floor. It was the merest chance, she realised, that she hadn't cracked her skull against the wall or floor.

Whatever it was she'd trodden on, it was still around here somewhere. After a lot of groping in the dark, she found it. It was more or less cylindrical, something over an inch in diameter, rubbery to the touch, with a switch halfway along, and glass at one end. Surely a torch?

She turned the switch on, and sighed with relief as light and form returned to her world. Now she could see the torch, it looked identical to the one Samantha had been using earlier. Was it hers, and if so, what had happened to her?

There was certainly no excuse for delay now. With renewed urgency, she set off.

  


Jamie continued watching until the boat was out of sight and hearing, which didn't take very long in the darkness. Then he waited for a few minutes, just in case the boat returned. It didn't, but there was a vague suggestion of something happening offshore; perhaps they had a ship waiting out there for them.

He set out for the hotel, deep in thought.

  


Victoria pushed the door open and shone her torch down the stairs. Here was the water, right enough — and her missing companions.

"Hey," Samantha called, her eyes closed against the glare of the torch. "Who's that?"

"Victoria."

"Great. Look, we're tied up. Can you get us out?"

"Of course."

Victoria set the torch down carefully on the top step, retrieved a penknife from her own collection of useful items, and hurried down the stairs. The water was deeper than it had looked, and as she plunged into it the coldness made her gasp. In very little time, she'd cut through the ropes tying her friends' hands. Their feet were more difficult, being underwater, but before long they'd all reached the safety of the stairs.

"Thanks for that," Isobel said, as they emerged from the cellar door.

"Shouldn't we try to stop the water?" Victoria asked. "It's still rising."

"I think you'd need a plumber," Gia said. "One of the pipes came adrift. Anyway, it won't overflow for a while yet."

"Zoë'll probably tell you how long before it does," Isobel added. "To the minute."

"No I won't," Zoë said. "I'm t-too cold."

"Come on, then. Let's find somewhere warm to dry off."

"Good idea. It's probably affecting Sam badly, too. It's all to do with s-surface area to m-mass ratios..."

"Dunno about that," Samantha said. "But it's a good job I'm not a brass monkey right now."

"Whatever happened?" Victoria asked.

"Tell you as we go. Come on."

They hurried back they way they'd come, leaving a trail of wet footprints.


	6. Reading Between The Lines

The manager's office was reached by a door behind the reception desk. It was decorated in the same faded Victorian style as the rest of the hotel, and, it seemed, had been used to store various fragile objects during the building works. Stuffed birds under glass domes glared balefully from every flat surface, sharing the space with overblown porcelain vases. Pictures were stacked against the walls.

At the far end of the room was an outsize desk, its vertical surfaces carved to resemble blind arcading. Although the desk had its share of displaced ornaments, some of it still seemed to be used for business. Papers were stacked here and there on it, and Isobel, seated in a similarly grandiose revolving chair, was glancing through these. Samantha, Victoria, Zoë and Gia, on the other hand, were sitting in a huddle before an ancient gas fire, trying to dry their clothes and get some warmth back into their legs. Jamie, who'd met them in the hall, was standing guard at the door.

"Any luck?" Samantha asked.

"They all seem to be invoices." Isobel glanced through another stack of paper. "Building materials, plumbing, heating, that sort of thing."

"Perhaps there's a hidden clue," Gia said. "Perhaps it's a stegotext, and the real information is coded in the distribution of ink. See if Zoë can spot a pattern."

Zoë made no answer; she appeared to be dozing, her head on Victoria's shoulder.

"What's a stego-thingy when it's at home?" Samantha asked.

"A message with another hidden message. You might encode it in the low bits of an image file—" She looked around at the blank faces. "Never mind."

"Actually, that's a thought," Isobel said. She picked up a piece of paper, held it to the light at various angles, set it aside, and began to do the same thing with the other papers on the desk.

Samantha turned to Jamie. "What about you? Did you see anything?"

"They went off in a boat," Jamie said. "Out to sea, so I don't think they came from round here."

"What about that motorbike? Where does that fit in?"

"Well, that came a wee bit before those men came out of the hotel."

"But still after we'd been locked in the cellar," Gia said.

"Definitely," Victoria said. "I think it must have been you banging on the pipes that woke me."

"That all fits together quite well. These men are snooping round for some reason. They find us, and tie us up. Then one of them goes inland by road, and the remainder go out to sea by boat."

"They must have arrived by sea as well," Jamie said. "Otherwise, where did the boat come from?"

"By that reasoning, where did the motorbike come from?"

"Perhaps they brought it in the boat. Or perhaps it was in one of the sheds here."

"So, where does all that—" Samantha began.

Zoë's eyes snapped open.

"The goldfish!" she gasped. "They're plotting to— Oh, sorry."

"Nightmares again?" Victoria asked sympathetically.

Zoë nodded. "I'm definitely not firing on all thrusters tonight."

"Now," Isobel said, more to herself than the others. "What have we here?"

"I dunno," Samantha said. "What _do_ you have there? Because I'm fed up with hanging around with a lot of dead birds. We should be doing something."

Isobel held up a sheet of paper. She'd shaded it with a soft pencil, revealing a pattern of pale lines.

"It's a map," she said. "This piece of paper must have been underneath whatever they drew it on."

The party gathered round her.

"Any idea where that is?" Gia asked.

"Nope. No names."

"I suppose it was for the man on the motorbike," Zoë said. "If he was unfamiliar with the local topography."

"You what?" Samantha asked.

"She means, if he wasn't from round these parts," Jamie explained. "If he was, he wouldn't need a map."

"Well, can't we work it out? Perhaps it's the route from here to where he's going."

"Or perhaps it's just a few streets in Tatchester," Isobel said. "You know, you might say 'go to Tatchester and then follow this map'."

"Why Tatchester?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, I give up."

"It does sound as if we need more information," Gia said. "Where does that man Henry fit into this?"

"He must have let the others in," Victoria said. "The door was open, and it didn't seem to have been forced. I'm sure he was in on this from the beginning. Remember how displeased he was when Mrs Walters said we could stay the night?"

"Oh, was he?" Zoë yawned. "I didn't notice."

"Idiot," Samantha said casually. "Of course he was. And he'd be the one who locked us in, too."

"Then where's he now?" Jamie asked. "And the lady?"

"He's probably gone off with the others," Gia said. "Or on that motorbike. As for Mrs Walters... I think we'd better look for her."

"Together," Victoria added hastily.

"Why?" Samantha asked. "Frightened of what might happen to you on your own?"

"Not in the least," Victoria replied, not sounding entirely convincing. "But having gone to considerable trouble to find and rescue you once tonight, I'd rather not have to do it all again."

Isobel laughed. "That's us told, then. Come on, let's get started."

  


Outside it might be getting light — according to Jamie's wristwatch, it was getting on for dawn — but within the hotel, behind shuttered windows, the night seemed everlasting. Doubtless stung, however lightly, by Victoria's remarks about having to be rescued, Samantha had reclaimed her torch and insisted on taking the lead.

It had seemed likely that anything or anyone worth finding would either be in the part of the hotel where the lights were on, or at any rate not far from it. And, sure enough, a little way from the hall, Samantha shone her torch into what looked like a washroom, and discovered a prone, motionless figure on the tiled floor.

"Uh-oh," she said, stopping a few steps inside the door. "When I said I didn't wanna hang around with dead birds, I didn't mean this."

"Only the feathered variety?" Gia darted past her and knelt beside the fallen housekeeper. "Fortunately for you, she's not dead."

"I think it's pretty fortunate for her as well," Isobel said.

"She's out cold, though."

There was a short pause.

"Well, come on, then," Samantha said, glancing meaningfully at Victoria. "Break out the smelling salts."

Victoria raised her eyes heavenwards. "Whatever next? Will you demand that I don a crinoline or embroider a cushion? You seem to think that just because I was brought up a century before you—"

"Ye mean ye havenae brought any," Jamie said.

"No. I don't carry them. The bottles get broken, or they leak, and then when you need them they've all gone and your handbag's ruined."

"Salts, comma, smelling," Zoë said dreamily. "Also known as sal volatile, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirit of hartshorn. Active compound: Ammonium carbonate, Bracket-Bracket-N-H-four-Bracket-two-C..." She shook her head. "Sorry, parsecs away. We should be able to synthesize some from common household materials."

Isobel crossed to the sink. "Or we could just splash water in her face."

"If there is water. It's supposed to have been deactivated in the central range."

"Yes, but it was Henry who said that. And he was trying to get rid of us."

"Even if he was lying, I think Samantha's probably cut the water supply off with all that pipe-breaking."

"One pipe!" Samantha protested. "I break one pipe and now I'm suddenly the Phantom Plumbing Sabotager for the rest of my life."

Isobel turned one tap, then the other. Not a drop of water was forthcoming.

"Yes," she said. "You are."

"She's coming round," Gia called, from her position beside the housekeeper. "Hello? Mrs Walters? Can you hear me?"

"Yes," came the faint reply.

There was a flurry of questions.

"What happened?"

"How are you feeling?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"What about yon fellow Henry?"

"Please, everyone, be quiet!" Victoria held up her hands.

To her slight surprise, it worked. There was a momentary hush.

"Glad somebody's got some manners," Mrs Walters said, sitting up. "Now, what are you young people doing roaming my hotel at dead of night?"

"May I?" Gia said. "It's a longish story, and perhaps we should find somewhere more comfortable to tell it. But it involves a criminal gang meeting here."

  


By the time the story had been told, most parts of it several times over, the party were once again sitting round the fire in the manager's office. Mrs Walters, still sounding a little shaky, added her own account, which wasn't much.

"I heard young Henry opening the front door," she said. "And I went to see what he was playing at. He was talking to someone. Must have been one of those men you saw later."

"Did you hear what was said?" Gia asked.

"Only something about being in London before noon. Then I think they must have heard me. Someone grabbed me... I don't know what happened after that."

"Some kind of stunner?" Zoë suggested. "No, they'd have used it on us as well."

"Chloroform?" said Victoria. "Or ether. Something they'd only brought enough of for one person. They were expecting you, Mrs Walters, but not us."

"Why did they come here?" Samantha asked. "Surely there isn't anything valuable here for them to steal."

"I'll check the safe," Mrs Walters said. "You'll have to help me up, my dear. I'm still a bit weak. But there's not a lot in it, and I can't see anything else missing."

Samantha pulled the housekeeper to her feet. "Who'd want this lot?"

"There's got tae be aliens _somewhere_ who'd give something for it," Jamie said dubiously. "Maybe there's a kind of creature that eats birds in glass jars. But I reckon these fellows were bringing something, not taking it away."

Mrs Walters and Samantha had by now reached a locked cupboard on the office wall. The housekeeper opened this, revealing the door of the safe itself: steel, with a keyhole and a large lever handle. With the aid of another key from her ring, this too was opened.

"It's all here," she said. "What there is."

"I thought so." Jamie nodded in satisfaction. "I reckon they weren't thieves. They were smugglers."

Isobel slapped her forehead. "Of course! They bring whatever it is ashore here, and take it to London by motorbike." She jumped to her feet, crossed to a bookshelf, unearthed a motoring atlas, and opened it on the desk. "Where are we?"

Mrs Walters joined her. "Here."

"Really?" Isobel laughed. "Jamie, come and look at how far off course you were."

"Now look," Jamie said. "Lass or no lass, if you mention that again—"

"Here come the empty threats of violence," Zoë said with a grin.

"I've had quite enough violence for one night, thank you," Mrs Walters said. "Now if I leave you lot on your own, can I trust you not to get in fights or cause any more floods? I'm not as young as I was and I've not had the best of nights."

"Neither have w-" Samantha began. Victoria kicked her in the ankle.

"You have our word," Gia said. "I'll make sure everyone's on their best behaviour."

"Right, then." The housekeeper walked slowly to the door, and turned to frown at the group. "Don't make things any worse than they are already."

"What did you want to kick me for?" Samantha asked, the moment the door had closed.

"I was wondering that, too," Zoë said. "As a rule, you're the one who'd start a fight just because she'd been told not to. Victoria isn't usually aggressive."

"Probably that scumble she drank at the festival," Isobel said.

"It wasn't scumble!" Victoria protested. "It was apple juice!"

"Keep back, guys," Samantha said. "Any minute now she'll turn nasty."

Victoria pulled the sternest face she could manage. "You're all being very silly. Isobel, are you using that atlas merely to tease Jamie, or did you have a serious point to make?"

"Well," Isobel said. "I think, if they are going to London, this map's got to be the route they're taking." She moved the open atlas to the left and placed the shaded paper beside it. "Look. If you avoid major roads, and do this..." She ran her pencil along the the route. "That gets you as far as this village. King's Medford. The map stops there. They must have another one for the rest of it."

"Nice going," Samantha said. "So we call the King's Medford police, tell them to arrest two blokes on a motorbike, and that's that. Telephone's in the hall. Come on."

"Hang on a moment," Jamie said. He placed his finger on the map. "D'ye mean tae tell me this is the road we should've been on in the first place?"

"No, Jamie," Isobel said patiently. "That's a county boundary. Now come along. The mapreading lesson's going to have to wait."

She folded the sketch map and tucked it into her belt. Leaving the atlas on the desk, they departed, en masse, for the hall. Samantha picked up the telephone.

"Hello?" she said. "Hello? Operator?"

She listened, rattled the receiver rest, then hung up. "The line's dead."

"They must've cut the wire," Isobel said. "That always happens in crime flicks."

Gia nodded. "Logical enough. They wanted to keep us out of things for as long as possible. Where's the next nearest telephone?"

"The nearest settlement is at St Margaret's Cove," Zoë said promptly. "About five klicks away."

"Five whats?" Isobel asked.

"Kilometres."

"You and your metric. How long would it take us to get there on foot?"

"An hour, at least."

Isobel groaned. "Just what I need right now."

"Och, it's jist a wee stroll," Jamie said. "Come on. Let's get our boots on and make a start."

In the dawn light, they hurried out of the hotel and along the path to where, it turned out, the bridge wasn't any more. Only an irregular line of posts sticking out of the marsh marked the route it had taken. This wasn't just a question of submersion by the tide, either; the walkway had been systematically dismantled. Just beyond the most distant post, it was possible to discern a neat stack of timber that hadn't been there before. The severed telephone cable protruded from the ground nearby.

"I suppose we couldn't wade across?" Isobel suggested reluctantly.

"I think that would be very dangerous," Victoria said. "That mud looks deep. We could easily get stuck or even drown." She picked up a pebble and threw it out into the marsh; it sank without a trace. "Perhaps when the tide comes in we could swim across, but that won't be for hours."

"There's shingle round the other side of the island," Samantha said. "We could start swimming from there..." She tailed off, sounding even more reluctant than Isobel at the prospect.

"We'd still have to cross the marsh somehow. That's if we didn't get swept out to sea by the tide."

Jamie rubbed his hands. "You can't keep a McCrimmon prisoner. What about a boat?"

"They'd hardly have left one for us, would they?" Gia said. "Even if there were any boats here, they'd be locked away in one of those sheds."

"Aye, I ken that, but there's lots of wood and stuff in the hotel. We could tie some of it together..."

"Oh, there are lots of things we could do," Victoria said distantly. "The problem is time. Every minute we spend building a raft or trying to make a radio from bits and pieces, they're getting further away."

Samantha turned to Gia. "I suppose you can't—"

"Whip up a quick teleporter? No."

"All right," Isobel said. "How do we get out of this one?"

There was a longish pause. Then Zoë tentatively raised her hand.

"This is a bit risky," she said. "But one of those buildings is a café, isn't it? I think we should all go into it and eat different things."

Isobel tapped her on the head. "All right. I know there's a fine line between genius and insanity, but you've just gone straight through it."

"I hadn't finished." Zoë shot her an annoyed glance. "This is the clever bit. I dress up as a waitress—"

"She's finally snapped," Samantha said.

"Look at it this way," Jamie said. "At least we might get a cup of tea and a biscuit out of it. And who knows, maybe someone'll think of a proper plan."

The lock on the café door yielded quickly to Victoria's ministrations, and the party made their way inside.


	7. They Can Look You Right In The Face And Still Lie

"Nice tea, Victoria," Isobel said.

"Thank you."

Zoë bustled in from the café's tiny kitchen.

"Here's the bill," she said. "Sam, could you take a look at it?"

She had donned a pink apron embroidered with bluebirds, which had been hanging on the kitchen door. Despite this attempt to get into the rôle, her grasp of a waitress's duties had been sketchy at best, and by unspoken agreement she'd been kept well away from the actual preparation of food.

Samantha looked up in surprise. "What? Me? Why can't you?"

"Oh, I have." Zoë handed her a piece of paper and a pen. "But I think I've made a mistake somewhere. Could you double-check it for me?"

Samantha gave her a surprised look, but started glancing to and fro between the menu and Zoë's notes. After a few seconds, she started writing her own figures beside Zoë's neat entries, then crossing them out and writing others.

"Silly me," Zoë said, glancing over her shoulder at the fractured arithmetic. "I must have been working in base eight. Or was it nine?"

Samantha, momentarily distracted, crossed out several entries she shouldn't have, and multiplied the price of teacakes by the date.

Across the table, Gia suddenly opened her mouth in a soundless "Aha!". She cleared her throat.

"How d'you think they'll get on in the cricket today?" she said.

"What's that got to do wi' anything?" Jamie asked.

"Oh, Jamie!" Zoë said, causing Victoria to smother a giggle behind her hand. "You should take more interest in these things. I think, in this weather, they should get to three hundred easily. Probably with two or three wickets to spare."

"Ah, but the light won't be good past five," Gia countered.

Samantha's paper was now a tangled mess of figures. Her face was screwed up in concentration, trying to follow from the price list through the twists and turns of Zoë's outlandish mathematics, all the while under fire from the blizzard of numbers being thrown back and forth across the table.

"Since when were you interested in cricket?" Isobel asked.

"About ten or twelve minutes ago," Zoë replied, straight-faced.

"Hey!" Samantha yelped. She threw the pen down and jumped to her feet. "What's going on?"

Gia cast a glance at the paper. The numbers on it danced before her eyes.

"We have ignition," she said drily. "I suggest we find something to hang onto."

Even as she spoke, the café began to shake. On the counter, a pyramid of rock cakes shuddered, and the topmost one bounced to the floor.

"What's happening?" Jamie demanded. Instinctively, he clutched at the closest person to hand — in this case, Isobel.

"I've done it!" Zoë's eyes were shining with triumph.

"Done what?" Victoria grabbed at her teacup as another tremor threatened to send it off the edge of the table.

"It's a fully operational Bistromathic Drive, of course." As always when she'd just solved a tricky puzzle, Zoë had a slightly euphoric expression and absolutely no thought for any problems her cleverness might give rise to. "Enjoy the ride, every—"

The acceleration caught everyone by surprise. Tables, chairs, cutlery, cups, saucers, plates, food and drink all went flying, and the whole place was instantly reduced to chaos. Gia overturned the table they'd been sitting at, crouched behind it, and dragged Jamie and Isobel down with her. A series of impacts sounded as, one by one, the rock cakes flew off the counter and smashed against the far side of the table.

She glanced over her shoulder. Victoria had dived under another table, and was hanging onto its legs for dear life as it slid toward the back of the café. There was no sign of Samantha or Zoë. Through the windows could be seen, not the dawn sky, but the darkness of space, with what looked disturbingly like stars hurtling past.

"Gia!" Isobel shouted, over the sounds of shattering crockery. "Don't ever, and I mean _ever_ , let her do this again!"

Before Gia could answer, the acceleration came to an abrupt halt. For a few queasy seconds, they were weightless. Then the G-force hit them again, in the opposite direction, and everything began to slide in the direction of the counter. Victoria's table glided past again, her screams dopplering.

"What's happening to the air?" Jamie asked, still hanging onto Isobel for dear life. "It feels like we're up in the mountains."

"This building can't be airtight. The air's leaking out into space." Gia found herself having to take deep breaths just to talk. "Doesn't that girl have any common sense?"

In unison, Jamie and Isobel solemnly shook their heads. A moment later, the windows flared with red light, the café shuddered under a violent impact, and its occupants were once more thrown headlong as if by a giant hand.

  


"Samantha?"

Samantha crawled out from a heap of smashed furniture, shaking demerera sugar out of her hair.

"Are you all right?" Victoria asked with concern.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Landed on something soft, didn't I?"

Zoë emerged behind Samantha, her apron wrapped round her head. She pulled it free.

"She means me," she said, and rose, somewhat unsteadily, to her feet. "Thank you for travelling Zoë Airlines and I hope you all enjoyed your journey."

She swayed, and leaned against the counter for support.

"Is that everyone?" Gia asked.

Jamie carefully enumerated them on his fingers. "You, me, Isobel, Victoria, Sam, and Trouble." He winked at Zoë. "That's everyone."

Victoria sniffed. "Something's burning," she said. "I think it's the café."

"That would follow," Zoë said calmly. "We re-entered the atmosphere at considerable speed..."

Before she could complete her sentence, Isobel had taken a firm grasp of her arm and dragged her outside.

  


The party found themselves in a trench, at its base exactly as wide as the café, and deep enough that they couldn't see out. The sides of the trench steamed gently, making it difficult to see beyond a few metres. Behind them, the café, blackened and distorted by its journey, smouldered.

Jamie cautiously touched the steaming earth; then, satisfied that it wasn't hot enough to burn, scrambled up the side of the trench.

"It's quite safe," he called down. "Nice and quiet."

The others soon joined him. Apart from the trench so recently carved into the landscape, it could have been anywhere in rural England. They were standing in a field, its grass wet with dew. In the middle distance could be seen more fields, nondescript woodland, and a minor road.

"What happened to the air?" Victoria asked. "While we were travelling, I mean. I couldn't breathe."

"Well," Zoë said defensively. "I couldn't follow a direct course. We'd have ripped a hole in the Earth's crust."

"Looks like you did anyway," Samantha said, gesturing at the trench.

"A minor scuff. This would have involved lava. Anyway, I took us a little way into space and back down again."

"Why all the way to space?" Gia asked. "Surely you could plot a suitable trajectory that didn't leave the atmosphere."

"That's what I thought I was doing." Zoë avoided meeting Gia's eye. "But I overshot a bit."

"How much?"

Zoë shuffled her feet, and blushed. "We ended up somewhere in Messier 17, I think."

Gia gaped, momentarily lost for words.

"What's that mean?" Jamie asked, nudging her.

"It means her calculation was out by approximately fourteen orders of magnitude," Gia said, recovering her composure.

"Pretty good for a first try, then," Jamie said helpfully. "Wasn't it?"

Gia took a deep breath. "I agree with Isobel. Zoë, you are never to experiment with bistromathics again."

"I'm sure I know what I did wrong," Zoë said. "I think, if I had another go—"

"No!" all the others chorused.

"You're no fun any more." Zoë looked down at the café, which was now burning merrily. "I'd need another café, though. This one's used up."

"I don't know if any of you lot remember," Isobel said. "But before this little trip we were supposed to be thwarting a gang of criminals, weren't we?"

"First thing we do is find out where we are," Samantha said firmly. "Starting with what planet we're on, and working up from there. It's not that I don't trust you, Zoë, it's just that you're completely off your trolley."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that "The Flying Inn" would also have been a suitable name for this chapter.


	8. The Smiling And Beautiful Countryside

Wreathed in early morning mist, the village was an oasis of rural tranquillity. Nobody seemed to be astir, which wasn't particularly surprising at this hour of the morning. The one and only shop was closed, houses were curtained or shuttered, and nothing moved on the road.

"It looks very beautiful," Victoria said wistfully. "But not quite right, somehow, without any people at all."

"If they've got any sense, they're in bed," Gia said.

"They'll just have to get up, then," Samantha said. "That's if they're people at all. Like I said, we don't even know this is Earth."

"It looks like Earth."

"Yeah, but it could be one of those parallel worlds where everything's the same but a bit different. They have them on _Star Trek_ all the time. You know, where the Romans won the Battle of Hastings or whatever."

"I thought that was the Vikings," Zoë said.

Victoria winced, but forebore to correct them.

"If it is a parallel Earth, there's no point in asking anyone what the planet is," Gia said. "Because a parallel Earth would be called 'Earth' too."

"Earth Two?" Jamie asked innocently.

Gia sighed. "That is not what I meant."

"Don't worry," Isobel said. "He only does it to annoy. We'll just have to fall back on watching out for people wearing goatees or eyepatches."

"At the moment, we still need to find people, full stop."

They found nobody until they reached the far end of the village. Here, the quaint rustic architecture gave way to a collection of corrugated-iron sheds which, it seemed, served as the local garage. In the forecourt stood two petrol pumps, of antique design but freshly painted. Between the pumps and the sheds could be seen various examples of agricultural machinery, in states of repair ranging from pristine to dismantled. Bending over a stripped-down tractor was a young man with crew-cut blond hair, whistling cheerfully as he tinkered with the engine.

"Hello," Samantha said, walking across the forecourt to where he was working.

The mechanic looked up. "Morning. You're up and about early."

Samantha gestured to the tractor. "Seems like we're not the only ones."

"Early to bed, early to rise. What can I do for you ladies?"

"This is gonna sound daft," Samantha said. "But... Where is this place?"

"King's Medford, of course. Finest village in the land."

"There you are," Zoë said. "Just where we should be."

Samantha made a face at her. "A fluke. That's all it was." She turned back to the mechanic. "Thanks, mate. You're a star."

"Any time."

"See you later. Do you have a name?"

"Call me Mike."

"Nice to meet you, Mike. I'm Samantha."

"Then see you later, Samantha."

They walked back to the road.

"I think you just picked up a new admirer," Isobel said.

"How do you do that?" Victoria asked. "You've had a disturbed night, your clothes aren't anything special, you look, pardon me, as if you'd been dragged through a hedge backwards... and you still had him eating out of your hand."

Samantha grinned. "I'm just that good," she said. "I reckon I could pull on the Mersey Ferry in a force ten gale."

Victoria turned slightly green at the thought. "Please don't feel any compulsion to try on my account," she said primly.

"Excuse me," Zoë said. "Now we've established that your slurs on my navigation were totally unjustified, don't we need to decide how to proceed?"

"We stop that motorbike," Jamie said firmly. "Just in case you've all been too busy chasing after men to remember."

"Oh, I think we've got a jealous Jamie," Samantha said. "Don't worry, I wouldn't forget you." She hugged him. "There, is that better?"

"Maybe, but you're not going to stop a crook on a motorbike by giving him a cuddle or two."

"Call me old-fashioned," Victoria said. "But I think we should go to the police."

\- * -

"So," Sergeant Peters said, glancing at his notebook. "You claim that a gang of smugglers is intending to transport something valuable, but you don't know what it is, through this village, and you think I should stop them."

"Aye." Jamie prodded the desk in frustration. "Look, we're wasting time. They could be here at any moment."

"Do you have any proof of your story?"

Jamie scratched his head. "Well, Isobel's got the sketch-map. Look, if you send someone to the Daneswarren Hotel the lady there will tell you we're not lying. They knocked her out and tied her up and if it wasn't for us she'd still be there."

"So you were at the hotel recently?"

"Aye, this wasn't more than half an hour ago."

"And yet you've somehow managed to get here before the alleged smugglers."

"Zoë did something to a café and it flew into space and brought us here. Look, we're getting nowhere."

"I quite agree." The Sergeant snapped his notebook shut. "I never heard such a preposterous story in all my born days. Now get out before I arrest you for wasting police time."

  


Jamie emerged from the police station — nothing more than a house with a blue lamp outside — to find the others waiting for him.

"How did it go?" Victoria asked.

"Not so well." Jamie perched himself on a windowsill. "I don't think I should've mentioned Zoë making yon café fly. He thought I was a spleadhadair."

"A what?"

"That I was telling him a tall story."

"Oh, _Jamie!_ " Zoë said. "I might have known you'd ruin everything!"

"Well, how was I tae ken he'd be such a stick-in-the-mud? That sort o' thing happens at Nameless all the time."

"But obviously not here." Victoria sighed. "This must be one of those quiet little English villages where nothing ever happens."

"Until one day it does and the police don't realise the danger until too late," Isobel added. "Now what do we do?"

"Och, that's obvious enough," Jamie said. "We catch whoever it is ourselves."

"Sounds good so far. How?"

"Block the road. And hide behind the hedges. When they come, we jump out on them."

"That's not a bad idea," Zoë said. "How do we block the road, though?"

"I thought yon fellow at the garage might have something we could use. Bollards or what-not."

"He'd hardly give them to us, would he?"

"He'd give them to me," Samantha said. "With the right persuasion, of course. And if he doesn't, we can just bash him over the head and nick what we need."

"Samantha!" Victoria said. "That's the sort of thing those smugglers would do. Can we at least try to keep to the moral high ground?"

Once more, they set out for the garage.

\- * -

"You're a real friend in need," Samantha said, giving the mechanic a dazzling smile.

"Yeah, well, I shouldn't really be doing this, but if it's like you say..."

"Has anyone got any other ideas?" Zoë asked, watching the negotiation with scientific detachment. "We could really do with a backup plan or two, just in case."

"I thought we could dress up like the police," Isobel said. "To make them stop, I mean."

"Where, in this village, would we get six police costumes?"

"That was the next thing I thought. So I didn't suggest it."

Zoë smiled. "I'd have liked to see how the uniform looked on you, though."

"Perhaps next time there's a fancy-dress party."

"No other ideas, anyone?"

"I've got one," Gia said. "A short-range, tightly focused, electromagnetic beam to disrupt the function of the vehicle's engine."

"Oh, aye, and where are we going tae find one of them?" Jamie asked. "That sounds even harder than the uniforms."

Gia smiled in triumph. "Zoë, give me your phone."

Reluctantly, Zoë dug out her mobile. It looked rather like a slab of silvered glass, with rounded edges and no surface markings at all.

"Come on," Gia said. "Hand it over. I'll get you a new one, promise."

Zoë wordlessly dropped the telephone into Gia's outstretched hand.

"Thanks. Now, I'll need an assistant."

"I don't think I could bear to watch," Zoë said.

"You'd be overqualified. I just need someone to hold my soldering iron—"

"—And tell you how clever you are," Jamie interrupted.

"Sounds like you've just volunteered," Isobel said.

At this moment, Samantha rejoined them.

"It's all sorted," she said. "Mike's gonna lend us a handcart to put the stuff on. We'll have to load it up ourselves."

"Can the rest of you deal with that?" Gia asked. "I really need to make a start on the pulse generator. Oh, and could you ask your friend Mike if he's got a soldering iron I can use?"

"Aye," Jamie said. "And we need tae find out the lie of the land in these parts. None of this'll be any use if we end up on the wrong road."

"Come with me, then," Samantha said. "We'll get you set up in no time."

"At least back up my files first!" Zoë called after them.

Isobel looked from her to Victoria. "Come on, you two. We need to get this cart loaded. There's not a lot of time."

\- * -

"Just about here," Gia said. She crouched down, being careful to bend her legs rather than her back, and deposited the car battery she was holding in the long grass at the base of the tree.

"Not before time," Jamie said, placing another battery alongside Gia's. "What are these things made of?"

"Lead," Gia said. "And count yourself lucky we've got the cart, or you'd have had to carry them all the way from the garage."

She waited while the other four positioned their batteries, and then began to wire them together.

"Now all we need is someone to deploy the pulse generator," she said, twisting the last few wires together as she spoke.

"Meaning what?" Jamie asked.

"Climb the tree with this." She held out Zoë's telephone. Its casing was now cracked and held together with duct tape. At one end a hole had been drilled into it; from this, a long flex emerged, most of which was slung over Gia's shoulder in a neat coil. "Attach it to that branch, so this end points downward."

She indicated a branch, ten or twelve feet up, which projected over the road.

Everyone looked at each other, and then at the tree.

"I reckon we need a ladder," Samantha said.

Isobel gave the tree a dubious look. "Or one of those lorries, you know, that they use to change the bulbs in street lamps. With the long arm."

"You mean a cherrypicker," Gia said.

"Do I? Anyway, I don't see how we can do it on our own."

"We could climb on each other's shoulders," Zoë suggested vaguely.

Victoria looked around the group. "Am I to understand that none of you can climb a tree?"

"We're city girls," Samantha said. "We don't do trees. Can't Jamie do it?"

"Wi' you lot standing at the bottom and keeking up my kilt?" Jamie asked indignantly.

"We wouldn't look. Promise." Samantha crossed her fingers behind her back, and seemed to be finding it difficult to keep a straight face.

Victoria sighed. "Give me the equipment, please, Gia."

"You?"

"I was something of a tomboy in my younger days," Victoria said, tying the flex round her waist. "I will freely admit that I'm afraid of Ice Warriors and Cybermen, but climbing trees holds no terror for me. Could one of you put your hands together and give me a leg-up?"

It took several attempts, in between which she tended to end up on the ground with the breath knocked out of her, but eventually Victoria made it up the trunk and inched her way along the indicated branch. Despite her earlier boast, she wasn't feeling at all confident. It was a long time since she'd been in the habit of scrambling about in trees, and she'd already had an exhausting day and night.

"That'll do," Gia called up to her. "See if you can wedge it somehow."

"She's got pluck, I'll give her that," Isobel said, as Victoria secured the telephone and started backing towards the trunk, paying out the wire as she went. "It makes my palms go damp just to watch her."

"If she tried that in my time we'd all be sent on a compulsory risk assessment course," Zoë said. "You'd need scaffolding and rubber mats and antigravs and environmental impact statements..."

"So no-one climbs trees where you come from?" Jamie asked her.

"Space stations don't have a lot of trees as a rule."

"Och, ye ken what I mean. You grew up in a City, you said."

"Yes. We had properly-organised indoor activity centres with climbing frames. Not trees."

"Mind out below," Victoria called down. She threw the free end of the flex to Gia, and started to shin down the tree trunk.

"You wouldn't think it to look at her, would you?" Samantha said, watching Victoria scramble down. "It just goes to show, you never can tell."

Victoria chose that moment to lose her footing and half-slid, half-fell the rest of the way. More by luck than design, Samantha caught her.

"You all right?" she asked.

"I think so." Victoria rubbed her arm, where a twig had scratched her. "What should we do now?"

"Someone stays here, behind the hedge," Gia said. "When the motorbike comes, they put the brown wire on the red terminal. I'd suggest they wear gloves for that."

"Why brown on red? Surely it should be red on red?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Frankly I'm amazed this era made any scientific progress at all, when they couldn't even agree what colour meant live. Anyway, it only needs one person to do that. The rest of us wait at the roadblock."

"Us?" Isobel said. "You're not going to be the one who stays behind?"

"I thought Victoria might like to do it. You start off, and I'll catch up when I've talked her through it. Is that all right with the rest of you?"

There was a general murmur of agreement. Gia waited until the rest were out of earshot.

"Thanks for agreeing to that," she said.

"I think I know why you didn't want to stay behind," Victoria said. "You want to be there with the rest of them when whatever happens, happens. And see how well you cope."

"Are you reading my mind?"

"No, but I'm probably better at guessing than the other girls."

"Thank you."

Victoria gave her an encouraging smile. "Good luck."

  


"This is the best spot," Jamie said. "Hedges on either side. We put the barriers across the road here. Then we can hide the cart behind yon gate."

"Here's Gia," Samantha said. "Everything OK?"

"Everything," Gia replied.

"Right, then. Let's get this barrier set up."

What was on the cart wasn't so much a barrier, as a kit of parts that might one day become one. Oil drums, painted wooden beams, and rope figured prominently.

"This looks like a team-building exercise," Zoë said, as they started to unload the cart.

"A what?" Samantha asked.

"You know. Build a bridge across an imaginary chasm against a time limit, that sort of thing. They always seem to involve components like this."

"Never heard of it."

"You will," Gia said darkly. "They come in a few years after your time, if I remember rightly. And spread like _Bellis fosterii_ and are even harder to stamp out."

"Like what?"

"I suppose that hasn't been invented in your time either? A genetically engineered plant to clean up chemical spills."

"Don't tell me," Jamie said, tying a beam into position. "It was worse than whatever it was supposed to cure."

"Got it in one. Anyway, when I was a junior tech at T-Mat, we had to do team-building. Group bonding and things. As soon I was in charge, I put a stop to it."

"So how do you build teams, then?"

"I choose people," Gia said. "And I tell them what to do, and they do it. Or else."

Isobel laughed. "You tell him, sister."

Samantha hung the last component of the barrier in place: a piece of plywood, crudely painted with the words ROAD CLOSED.

"There," she said. "Looking good."

"At least, as good as we're going to get it," Zoë said. "Jamie, what are you doing down there?"

"Probably taking another nap," Samantha said, looking down at Jamie's prone form.

Jamie, one ear pressed to the ground, put his finger to his lips.

"They're coming," he said.

In the distance, the sound of a two-stroke engine could now be heard. The ambushing party quickly scattered to either side of the road, climbed over the gates into the fields on either side, and crouched behind the hedges, waiting.


	9. Where Another Man Might Stop

On hearing the motorbike approaching, Victoria risked a quick peek over the hedge. She couldn't be sure that this was the same bike whose lights she'd seen from the hotel, but who else would be heading this way at this time, at far too high a speed?

She ducked back down, took a deep breath, and with her gloved left hand connected the wire to the battery. There were a few sparks and crackling noises, but no other visible effect. The motorcycle engine grew steadily louder and louder as it approached.

As the motorbike passed under the tree branch, its engine spluttered and died. Once more, Victoria peered cautiously over the hedge. The motorcycle glided away down the road and round a slight bend, decelerating rapidly.

For a few moments, Victoria waited, wondering whether she should disconnect the wire again, or leave it. Gia hadn't given her any instructions on that point. In the end, she decided to leave it connected, and set off in pursuit.

Left alone at the foot of the tree, the batteries sparked and fumed.

  


The motorbike glided to a halt in the middle of the ambush, just short of the improvised barrier. Two people were riding it, both unidentifiable in their helmets and leathers. The driver kicked at the starter a few times, but the engine refused to fire.

"Sorry," he said. The unseen watchers recognised the voice of Henry from the previous night. "She won't start. Must be something wrong with the ignition."

The pillion rider silently dismounted. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet, but nonetheless moved purposefully as he unstrapped a box from the carrier.

"You there!" Samantha shouted, popping up from behind the hedge like a Jack-in-the-box. "We've got you surrounded. Put your hands in the air and stand still."

The two motorcyclists did no such thing. The driver, presumably Henry, ran back down the road, while his passenger calmly and unhurriedly climbed over the gate into the field where Zoë, Jamie and Gia were hiding.

"You stay where you are," Jamie said, advancing on the helmeted figure.

He was shouldered aside without a word. His temper rising, he exchanged nods with Zoë and they each took hold of one of the figure's arms.

A moment later, he was lying on his back, and Gia was bending over him.

"How do you feel?" she asked him, checking his limbs for any obvious breakages.

"I'm all right." He climbed to his feet. "What about Zoë?"

Zoë, it turned out, was lying a few yards away. As Jamie and Gia ran to her, she managed to rise to her feet and limped in their direction.

"Don't bother with me," she said, sounding dazed. "Get after that thing. Bet you a euro it isn't human."

"No bet," Gia said. "Come on."

She caught Jamie by the arm and the pair set off at a run. It was hard going; the field had been ploughed, and they found themselves stumbling over the ridges and furrows, the heavy soil clinging to their boots. They soon caught up with the helmeted figure, but Jamie now took the lead, pulling Gia to one side.

"We've got tae get ahead of him," he explained. "Set a trap or something."

Gia, reluctant to waste breath on talking, nodded and ran on.

  


As Victoria rounded the bend, she saw a motorcyclist, anonymous in his helmet, running towards her, with Isobel and Samantha in hot pursuit. Without giving herself time to think, she rushed at him, screaming at the top of her voice, and collided with him. He quickly recovered and tried to grab her, but she threw herself down and to one side, catching hold of his left leg.

Before the man could make any attempt to shake her off, Samantha and Isobel had him by the arms.

  


Under the tree, the batteries were now hot to the touch, or would have been had anyone been around to touch them.

  


Annoyingly, by the time she reached the stile that led to the next field, Gia couldn't do much more than lean on the fence and try to recover, while Jamie, apparently not tired in the least, climbed up and surveyed the landscape. Looking back the way they'd come, she could see the man still walking towards them at the same pace. Further behind him, Zoë was giving chase, still limping.

"See anything?" Gia asked.

"Aye, I think we might be in luck," Jamie said. His expression was all too scrutable: he was about to try something absurdly risky. "Pick up as many little stones as you can, and follow me."

"Not more running?"

"Well, do the best you can." Jamie shook his head. "Not enough exercise, that's your trouble."

"I go to the gym," Gia protested.

"Ah, but jumping about on the spot in front of a bare wall canna be good for you. You need tae spend more time running away from monsters. Come on."

Gia found it easier to keep up with Jamie this time. Perhaps her rest and the few moments they'd spent picking up pebbles had helped, or perhaps it was because on the other side of the stile the field hadn't been ploughed and so was relatively flat. Jamie turned to the left and made for a gate which led into a third field. Like the field they were in, this field was also laid to pasture; unlike it, it had an occupant. A large and unpleasant-looking bull looked up, and ambled threateningly in their direction.

"Are you telling me your plan involves... that?" Gia asked, pointing at the bull.

"Of course. Here's what we do. We open the gate and get yon beastie to chase us."

"You're not serious."

"I am. It's quite simple. We split up. There's only one of him. If he chases after you, I throw stones at him until he changes his mind, and the same the other way round. And we try tae put him onto the fellow from the bike. Told you you needed practice running away from monsters."

"You're all crazy," Gia said. "You do know that, don't you?"

Jamie grinned at her. "Wouldn't be any fun otherwise."

  


Outnumbered three to one, Henry hadn't been able to escape, though he'd certainly put up a fierce resistance. In the end, Samantha, Victoria and Isobel had dragged him back to the cart and used some of the spare rope to tie his hands and feet. Leaving Samantha to stand guard over their captive, Isobel and Victoria set off in pursuit of the other man.

  


Jamie pushed the gate open, selected a pebble, and shied it at the beast. The bull shook its head, and set out for him at a brisk trot.

"Now run!" Jamie shouted at Gia.

The two set out for the stile. Gia glanced over her shoulder, to see the bull running after them, rapidly gaining.

"Split!" Jamie gasped, and dashed off at an angle. Gia risked another look behind; the bull seemed momentarily baffled, then decided Jamie was the more important target, and made for him.

For a subjective age Gia found herself watching helplessly as the bull bore down on Jamie. In reality, though, she was in control of herself in moments. She shied a pebble at the beast, missed, tried again, and finally, in desperation, threw her entire stock. The bull stopped again, seemingly confused, giving Jamie precious seconds to extend his lead.

All Gia's logic and instincts were telling her to run for it. But she might need to distract the bull again. Frantically, she picked up stones, lumps of soil, anything that might serve as ammunition.

The bull made up his mind, and came for her. Once more, she ran for the stile, not daring to look behind her. At any moment she might be gored or trampled, and if she fell she was finished. Ahead she could see the wood of the stile clearly against the morning sky. The implacable helmeted figure had just begun to climb over it.

The ground felt as if it was shaking under her. She wasn't going to make it.


	10. Heavy, Violent, Abusive and Aggressive

"Hey!" Jamie's voice shouted. "Over here, ye daft lummox!"

Gia, zigzagging in the direction of the gate, guessed that Jamie was trying to distract the bull. Somehow, she didn't think it would work. Sooner or later, he'd concentrate on one target at a time, and right now that seemed to be her.

She staggered on the uneven ground, losing valuable time. She could almost feel the bull breathing down her neck...

"Take that!" Zoë's voice shouted, and a shower of soil and pebbles rained down around her. She risked a quick glance at the stile; three figures were standing on it.

"Zoë," one of them said. Gia recognised Isobel's voice. "You're supposed to be aiming at the bull."

"I was," Zoë protested.

"Better luck next time." She raised her voice. "Gia, make for the hedge. Try and climb over it."

Gia lost no time in complying. She was near the edge of the field now, and with a last desperate effort she managed to jump the ditch at the edge and scramble into the hedge, the thorns tearing at her hands and clothes. Behind her, she could hear the shouted instructions.

"Over here, Jamie!"

"You lot, try and get him tae come this way."

"Good shot! Right between the eyes!"

"Anyone got any more stones?"

"Take your shirt off! Wave it at him!"

"Here he comes..."

Gia, still tangled in the hedge, managed to look over her shoulder. Jamie, Isobel and Victoria were now surrounding the patiently plodding man, while Zoë was on her hands and knees near the stile picking up ammunition. The bull was within a few feet of Gia; he gave her a long look, as if wondering whether or not to press home his victory.

Victoria's arm moved rapidly, and the bull jumped as if stung. He turned, and charged at the presumed source of the attack. He covered the ground in next to no time, his course neatly intersecting that of the man, who had not paid him the slightest attention all this time.

The two figures seemed to merge. The man's arms moved with the same rapidity Gia had seen before, when he had flung Jamie and Zoë away. But the bull was a much bigger and tougher target. This time, the man ended up flying through the air. As he stood up, there was an undeniable gleam of metal where his clothes and synthetic flesh had been torn away. The bull shook his head menacingly and resumed the attack.

Gia was still watching when she felt a hand on her arm.

"Are you all right?" Zoë's voice asked.

"Just scratches," Gia said. "I could use a bit of help getting down."

Getting out of the hedge was a much longer and more awkward process than getting into it had been. But eventually, she was back at ground level.

"What about you?" she asked.

Zoë rubbed her leg. "It's bruised here," she said. "Right on the tibia. I can walk, but it hurts if I try to run."

"Don't try. Lean on me if you need to."

The two made it back to the stile at around the same time that the other three, having given the bull a wide berth, also reached it. One by one, they climbed onto the stile and looked back. Most of them stayed on the fence, watching, but Victoria quickly turned away. Even though there wasn't any blood, and the courier looked less human with each passing second, there was still something unnerving about the way it twitched and jerked under the bull's trampling hooves.

"That's it for him," Isobel said. "Serve him right. He could have killed any of us."

"Seconded," Zoë said. "And I told you he wasn't human." She turned her scrutiny on Jamie, looking rather as she might when inspecting a malfunctioning radio telescope. "What was all that about taking my shirt off?"

"Well, it's red," Jamie began. "Everybody knows bulls —"

"Are colourblind, Jamie. You know that as well as I do. Was this really about distracting the bull?"

Jamie adopted an expression of wounded innocence.

"Of course it was," he said. "What else d'ye think it could have been?"

The radio telescope, Zoë's expression suggested, would have been on the scrapheap by now.

"I rather wondered," she said, "if it was a cunning plan to ogle my underwear."

"Wouldn't put it past him," Isobel said.

"Come to think of it," Victoria added, "neither would I."

"Och, now that's just not fair—"

"Can we get back to business?" Gia said. "This was a smuggling run, or so we thought. If that man, or robot, or whatever, was the courier, what was in that box he was carrying?"

Jamie pointed. "It's down there."

Except for Victoria, they looked. The box lay, open, close to the shattered remains of the courier. A device had fallen out. Originally it had been hand-sized, silver and black, roughly rectangular with protrusions around the edges. Now, it was a collection of smashed circuit boards and broken lumps of plastic.

"I wonder if it was one of those book scanners," Zoë said. "You know, Torchwood have got one. It can pick locks as well."

"Probably full of stolen data, too," Gia said. "If that thing can scan a library it wouldn't balk at a few million sets of bank details and signatures."

Isobel whistled. "Just imagine what that would fetch on the black market. No wonder whoever it was decided to try and smuggle one in."

"Whoever it was," Zoe said. "We still don't know who that is, do we? Was that man Henry any help?"

"None. He said he'd only ever spoken with the one man. The others kept their masks on the whole time and didn't speak."

"Did you believe him?"

"I wouldn't go that far. Victoria, what do you—" Isobel, who'd turned to face Victoria, suddenly looked past her. "Hey, is that something burning over there?"

Everyone looked round. A few fields away, the tree which Victoria had climbed was now surrounded by a thick column of smoke. At its base, the flicker of flame could be seen.

"I think one of the batteries must have shorted," Gia said. "Primitive technology. First sign of trouble and it bursts into flames."

Victoria sighed. "Unless we can put it out ourselves, we'll need to call the fire brigade. Everything we seem to do today just seems to make matters worse."

"Could you unpack that a little?"

Victoria began to count on her fingers. "So far today we've destroyed a café, a motorised bicycle, a robot smuggler, and the device he was smuggling."

"And my telephone," Zoë reminded her.

"Thank you, Zoë. And your telephone. We have also left our vehicle miles away obstructing a road, flooded the cellar of an hotel, alienated the local police, fraudulently blocked another road, set fire to a tree, and let a dangerous bull out of his field. And with what result? We have no proof that any smuggling ever took place, and would be hard pressed to explain our actions to anyone, let alone the authorities."

"When you put it like that..." Isobel looked around. "I think the question to ask ourselves is: What would the Doctor do in this situation?"

"Easy," Jamie said. "Get in the TARDIS and take off before anyone found out."

"Sounds like a plan. Come on, let's pick up Samantha and get out of here. Didn't that lad at the garage say there was a station near here? We could catch a train and be back in Nameless by lunchtime."

Isobel was already walking purposefully back toward the road. With varying degrees of reluctance, the others followed her.

"Really," Victoria said. "I believe you have no sense of responsibility at all."

Isobel cheerfully shook her head. "None. Look, if you're worried we can tell UNIT when we get back, and they'll handle the cleanup."

"Or Torchwood," Jamie suggested. "Then they'll cause so much damage that no-one'll notice what we've done."

"Good idea. Come along, everyone."

They crossed the field at a gentle walk, but as they climbed over the gate into the road, they found themselves in the presence of several police constables, Samantha and Henry (both handcuffed), and Sergeant Peters.

"Now then," the latter said. "What's all this?"


	11. Helping The Police With Their Inquiries

The police station only had two cells, both small and infrequently-used. Henry had been put in one, while the other was currently playing host to Jamie, Gia, Zoë, Victoria and Samantha. Most of the latter were trying to catch up on their sleep after the past few strenuous hours. Of course, there was always an exception.

"Isobel's been gone a long time," Samantha said.

"Sssh," Gia whispered.

"She got a phone call. It isn't fair. They should have given us all one."

"Sssh."

"Just 'cos she was flirting with that copper."

"Sssh - what?"

"Well, she was. And her a feminist, too. I wouldn't do anything like that."

"Apart from your friend Mike at the garage," Gia couldn't help reminding her. "And Jamie, though I don't think he's blameless there."

Jamie opened one eye. "I heard that."

"They don't count," Samantha said.

"Oh, so I don't count, do I? Well, let me tell you—"

The cell door opened and Isobel walked in. The others looked up.

"How d'you get on?" Samantha asked.

"I got to make my call," Isobel said. "Don't worry, we won't be stuck here too long."

Victoria rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Why's that? Did you send for UNIT?"

"That's right."

"And? Isobel, you're grinning like the cat who got the cream. What else did you do?"

Isobel adopted an air of mystery. "You'll find out, soon enough."

\- * -

With its customary wheezing, groaning sound, the TARDIS arrived in the forecourt of the police station. The Third Doctor emerged, followed by Jo and the Brigadier.

"Now, Lethbridge-Stewart," the Doctor was saying. "You just leave all the talking to me. I'm sure we'll get this sorted out in no time."

"Doctor, the message from Miss Watkins was quite clear that she'd been arrested. Frankly, that doesn't surprise me in the least. It's quite probable that she deserves everything she's got."

"But you can't leave her to rot in a police cell," Jo pleaded. "And what about Jamie and Victoria and the others?"

"Well, we shall just have to see, won't we?" the Doctor said, walking into the police station as if he owned it. The Brigadier followed; as Jo was about to go in as well, she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. A large, black SUV with stencilled TORCHWOOD markings skidded to a halt, nearly blocking the road. From it emerged two armed men and Yvonne Hartman.

"Where is he?" she asked Jo, without preamble.

"Who?"

"The Doctor, of course. The Watkins girl said he was here."

"He's in there," Jo said.

"Good. You two, wait here and keep an eye on this girl. If she tries anything funny, shoot her."

"Hey, just a minute..."

"Whatever alien technology his little friends have found, it's ours," Hartman said. "And if he tries to complain, we'll have that—" she indicated the TARDIS "—as well."

She disappeared into the police station. Jo hardly had time to catch her breath before a second, identical SUV arrived from the opposite direction, stopped no less abruptly, and disgorged the familiar figure of Jack Harkness.

"Jo Grant," Jack said, striding towards her. "Or are you Jo Jones at the moment? A pleasure to see you, whichever you are." He glanced at the soldiers holding Jo captive. "You two, stand down. That's an order."

"Thanks," Jo said, as the men lowered their weapons. "What are you doing here?"

"A little bird told me there was some alien tech knocking about here. So I came to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands. See you later."

He dived into the police station, from which raised voices could now be heard.

Before Jo could so much as look around, a second TARDIS materialised. The door was flung open, to reveal the Sixth Doctor in his full, multicoloured, retina-searing glory. Behind him emerged Peri, a vision in what Zoë or Gia would have called 'gorgeous period dress' and anyone else would have called 'one of the worst excesses of the nineteen-eighties.'

"Rescue is at hand," the Sixth Doctor declared, striding across the courtyard. "As usual, I have arrived in the nick of time, to save my faithful companions from disaster. Wait here, Peri."

Like the others, he marched into the police station.

Peri folded her arms. "Figures. We never get to be in on the good bits."

"I think I'd rather be out here than in there with that lot," Jo said.

"Yeah, maybe." Peri listened briefly to the sounds of animated discussion. "If I want an argument I can get that any time I like."

Jo idly looked up and down the street.

"Keep an eye out," she said.

"What for?"

"Well, in case anyone else turns up."

"Like who?"

"Black helicopters," Jo said solemnly. "Or men in dark suits and darker glasses."

"This is supposed to be England, isn't it? Next you'll be telling me the FBI are here."

"Stranger things _have_ happened."

At this point, the door of the police station was flung open. The Sixth Doctor emerged wearing a satisfied expression, followed in order by Isobel, Zoë, Victoria, Samantha, Gia, Jamie and Sergeant Peters.

"Get out of here at once," the Sergeant growled. "Before I do something I'll regret."

He stamped back into the police station, slamming the door behind him.

"There we are," Isobel said. "Told you I'd get us out in no time."

Jo rushed over to her.

"What did they _do_ to you in there?" she gasped. "You look dreadful."

Isobel grimaced. "That isn't police brutality," she said. "That's just wear and tear. You don't tend to look your best after you've been playing a nerve-wracking game of cat and mouse against a gang of smugglers all morning and half the night as well."

"Sounds thrilling. What happened?"

"Well, it all started—"

"It'll have to wait," the Doctor interrupted. "You lot were only released into my protective custody on condition that I took you away from here with all possible dispatch. Apart from anything else, we need to retrieve that car you've left lying around. Come along."

Isobel gave an elegant shrug. "Oh, well. See you later, Jo."

One by one, the Doctor, his six charges, and Peri filed into the TARDIS. Jo waved until the police box had faded from view.

  


In the TARDIS, the image of Jo receded on the scanner screen.

"Drat," Zoë said. "I should have asked Jo if she wanted to come with us next time."

"Before that, I should like to recover from this time," Victoria said.

"A very good point," the Doctor said, bending over the controls. "And, since you _are_ all in my custody, I think I need to supervise your rehabilitation. Perhaps a little community service would be appropriate. Some of the gutters back at the Round haven't been cleaned out for years."

"Aye, and they need more exercise," Jamie added helpfully. "Not that I mind, lassies these days are too skinny anyway. But they need tae practise their running."

The Doctor nodded. "I'm sure Mel will welcome some more recruits to her fitness classes. Yes, this is all looking quite promising..."


	12. I Would Be Busy Too

Isobel hooked the bucket onto the improvised winch.

"OK, Jamie," she called down. "Lower away."

"The Doctor wasn't kidding about these gutters," Samantha said. "What I wanna know is, how did all this stuff get in them? Leaves and twigs and general muck, yeah, that's what you'd expect to find. Maybe even small trees. But ratchet screwdrivers? Felt-tip pens? Ball bearings?"

"Edible ball bearings?"

"I dunno, and I'm not going to put one in my mouth to find out." She wiped her forehead. "It's hot up here. No wonder the Doctor made off first chance he got."

"He said he had to be in an audio."

"More likely he was getting hot and Mel wouldn't let him have ice cream. What time is it?"

Isobel checked her watch. "Half-past eleven exactly."

"Fab. That's the end of our turn. Let's get out of here."

They climbed off the flat roof and down the ladder. At its base, Jamie was tipping their last bucket of gutter scrapings into a wheelbarrow.

"That's it for us," Samantha said. "Someone else can have a go now."

Victoria reluctantly stood up. Before either Zoë or Gia could volunteer to join her, the sound of two people approaching could be heard.

"Now who can that be?" Victoria wondered out loud.

Her question was soon answered. The Brigadier rounded the corner of the building, followed closely by Captain Jack.

"Hi, ladies and gentleman," the latter said. "Looking good as always."

As if by conditioned reflex, the gutter-cleaners straightened their scruffy work clothes and dusted themselves down.

"Thought you'd like to know how we got on with those smugglers," Jack continued.

There was a general murmur of agreement.

"A quantity of valuable information was extracted from the remains of the robot courier," the Brigadier said. "We also found the man Henry very cooperative. Given suitable inducement, of course, and the proper interrogation technique."

"Nice cop, nasty cop?" Isobel asked.

"Quite so."

"I was the nice cop," Jack said, and flashed her a dazzling grin.

"So you were the nasty one, Brigadier?"

"The man's evidence," the Brigadier continued, straight-faced, "led us to a warehouse in the Barony of Norwood. Several arrests were made."

"Norwood isn't a barony."

"London Outside is quite a different place from the city you know, Miss Watkins."

"Yeah," Jack said. "You should see their version of the Torchwood Tower. It looks like some Dark Lord's palace. All black marble and gold. Even got a spire on top, and a huge glowing eye and everything. No wonder Yvonne spends all her time there rather than here."

"We also alerted the Navy and the coastguard service," the Brigadier said. "Captain Hart informs me—"

"That's his Captain Hart, of course, not mine," Jack added helpfully. "I'm never getting those two mixed up again."

"—Informs me that a vessel, supposedly a private yacht, was impounded last night. Several illegal plot devices were found aboard. That's all the news so far. If anything further comes up I'll let you know. Thank you for bringing the matter to our attention."

He turned to go.

"Hang on," Samantha said. "Don't we get a reward or a medal or something?"

"Good heavens, no. Far too much of that sort of thing, in my opinion."

"Only 'cos you haven't got room for any more ribbons on your jacket," Samantha muttered, as the Brigadier and Jack walked off. "That's just mingy. We don't even get sixpence for our trouble."

"Back to work, then," Gia said. "Coming, Victoria?"

As the two of them climbed the ladder and Jamie began to winch the bucket back up, Isobel, Zoë and Samantha sat down in the shade at the base of the wall.

"Do you think we ended up in someone else's story?" Isobel asked. "Perhaps even now Scotland Yard's ace detective is sitting in his office wondering what on earth happened to those smugglers he was tracking down."

"More like some gang of meddling kids on bikes who'd've spotted the gang stashing their loot and set a trap for them," Samantha said. "Now they'll have to do their homework instead. Serve them right." She paused briefly, then returned to old grievances. "And I still think we should've got a reward."

"Why?" Zoë asked. "We stumbled across this thing entirely by chance. If Gia didn't break every car she touches we'd have been back here and none the wiser."

"You may not wish to pursue that line of reasoning," Gia called down from above. "Bearing in mind that I've got a gutter full of sludge up here and you three are sitting ducks."

"Point taken," Samantha shouted back.

"So what do you have planned for next time?" Zoë asked Isobel.

Isobel leaned back against the wall. "Next time?" she said. "I'm very tempted to do nothing and just put up with you and Jamie sulking all day."

"Awww," Samantha said. "Spoilsport. Look, whatever we do, it can't be any more stressful than what we've just been through, can it?"

"Now that," Jamie said, seating himself beside them, "is tempting Fate. And no good ever came of that."

"Well, you tell Fate to bring it on." Samantha grinned at him. "Whatever he's got up his sleeve, we're ready for it."


	13. Epilogue: Good News Yet To Hear

"You're supposed to be a rational Universe," Zoë said, addressing the cosmos at large. "Perhaps you would care to explain this? Theories that don't involve my dreams being precognitive visions would be preferred."

She held up the contents of the parcel she'd received. A note: "Best I could do —Gia." And a bar of soap, made to look like an old-fashioned mobile telephone. She'd never met anyone called Gia, except in her dreams.

"If you do this sort of thing again," she added, "I shall be forced to consider switching to another philosophical framework."

The Universe made no reply.

**Author's Note:**

> This Time Round was created by Tyler Dion. For various titles I am indebted to W. Shakespeare, G. K. Chesterton, E. C. Bentley, T. Pratchett, A. Conan Doyle, Monty Python, and Isaac Watts.


End file.
